SAN ANTONIO -- Physical violence isn’t the only threat from terrorists. Our government is constantly preparing for potential attacks by criminals using bioweapons, too.
Some San Antonio scientists are on the forefront of the strange new world of bio-threats. The government is pouring millions into a local lab to come up with some important vaccines.
They are viruses that spring from exotic places with names like Ebola and Marburg. They’re too tiny to see with the naked eye, but their potential is enormous. These viruses are lethal up to 90% of the time.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Texas Biomedical Research Institute and its partners $5.4 million to come up with a vaccine, a silver bullet if you will, to protect all of us in case a weaponized version of this natural killer is every unleashed.
“It is a select agent,” said virologist Jean Patterson, Ph.D. “It’s a category “A” agent which means the government has predetermined it could be a potential biological weapon.”
Patterson and immunologist Ricardo Carrion, Ph.D. are heading up the San Antonio team developing a vaccine.
Macaque monkeys will be the animal models. The idea is to come up with protection in a single shot.
The vaccine will use a lab-created virus-like particle (VLP) that is not active, but can produce a strong antibody response.
“That’s the goal is to have a vaccine that can be distributed to first responders, to military personnel, to all of us, eventually,” Carrion explained. “But it’s important to be protected as a first line of defense.”
These scientists believe vaccine development is a practical response to a nebulous security threat.
“The government, the figure if it’s a good vaccine, they’re going to stockpile it and prepare for anything in advance,” Patterson added. “Protection is always better.”
Texas Biomedical Research Institute is one of only five labs in the country where this kind of work takes place. The hope is to have this vaccine for Ebola and Marburg in about five years.
